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MICHAEL CARAYANNIS, The Daily Telegraph
Feb 27 2018
Clubs face heavy fines if they refuse to release players for the landmark Test match between New Zealand and England in USA later this year.
After months of negotiations the match will take place at the Mile High Stadium in Denver on June 24 — as part of the stand-alone representative weekend.
Despite serious reservations by clubs, the Daily Telegraph has learnt that they will face hefty fines if they refuse to make their players available. There are some fears the withdrawals of players could replicate that of City versus Country in recent years where clubs medically ruled out players to prevent them from playing and eventually resulted in the death-kneel of the intrastate clash.
Regardless, the match will be a historic one for rugby league in the lead up to the 2025 World Cup in the USA. The stadium holds about 76,000 people and is home to 2016 Super Bowl winners the Denver Broncos. Each country will pocket about $500,000 for playing and are obligated to field full-strength teams.
The Daily Telegraph has obtained an email sent by New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) boss Alex Hayton to the 16 NRL clubs which confirms the financial motivate behind the match. Hayton also addressed eight concerns including travel schedule, insurance,injury compensation, medical care and player payments.
“NZRL is reliant on playing international rugby league to generate surpluses to fund its domestic operations and programs,” Hayton wrote to club bosses on Wednesday. “In a World Cup, NZRL does not receive any income from the end-of-year international calendar as the RLIF retains the surplus from the World Cup to fund its activities.
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Baaah.
Ridiculous. We just get a team together that might go somewhere and along comes this nonsense.
As if there's not enough rep football here to wear our players out and risk injury in.
We should get $2m for every player they take who gets injured.
Feb 27 2018
Clubs face heavy fines if they refuse to release players for the landmark Test match between New Zealand and England in USA later this year.
After months of negotiations the match will take place at the Mile High Stadium in Denver on June 24 — as part of the stand-alone representative weekend.
Despite serious reservations by clubs, the Daily Telegraph has learnt that they will face hefty fines if they refuse to make their players available. There are some fears the withdrawals of players could replicate that of City versus Country in recent years where clubs medically ruled out players to prevent them from playing and eventually resulted in the death-kneel of the intrastate clash.
Regardless, the match will be a historic one for rugby league in the lead up to the 2025 World Cup in the USA. The stadium holds about 76,000 people and is home to 2016 Super Bowl winners the Denver Broncos. Each country will pocket about $500,000 for playing and are obligated to field full-strength teams.
The Daily Telegraph has obtained an email sent by New Zealand Rugby League (NZRL) boss Alex Hayton to the 16 NRL clubs which confirms the financial motivate behind the match. Hayton also addressed eight concerns including travel schedule, insurance,injury compensation, medical care and player payments.
“NZRL is reliant on playing international rugby league to generate surpluses to fund its domestic operations and programs,” Hayton wrote to club bosses on Wednesday. “In a World Cup, NZRL does not receive any income from the end-of-year international calendar as the RLIF retains the surplus from the World Cup to fund its activities.
#####
Baaah.
Ridiculous. We just get a team together that might go somewhere and along comes this nonsense.
As if there's not enough rep football here to wear our players out and risk injury in.
We should get $2m for every player they take who gets injured.
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